TED on Sunday: James Howard Kunstler on the Death of Suburbia

April 05, 2009

April is Earth Month, and to celebrate we've lined up four Sunday morning "TEDs" related to the concept of sustainability. First up: author (The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape, The Long Emergency) and social critic James Howard Kunstler. In this funny and profane talk, Kunstler blasts the soulless suburban sprawl that has consumed huge swaths of the American landscape and warns that the end of cheap oil -- and the Happy Motoring culture it spawned -- will result in "epochal change." Forget hydrogen or alternatives as a replacement. In the twenty-first century, says Kunstler, life will be about living, eating, and working locally. (Filmed: February 2004. Running Time: 19:45)